Is there a way to enumerate the members of a structure (struct | class) in C++ or C? I need to get the member name, type, and value. I've used the following sample code before on a small project where the variables were globally scoped. The problem I have now is that a set of values need to be copied from the GUI to an object, file, and VM environment. I could create another "poor man’s" reflection system or hopefully something better that I haven't thought of yet. Does anyone have any thoughts?
EDIT: I know C++ doesn't have reflection.
union variant_t {
unsigned int ui;
int i;
double d;
char* s;
};
struct pub_values_t {
const char* name;
union variant_t* addr;
char type; // 'I' is int; 'U' is unsigned int; 'D' is double; 'S' is string
};
#define pub_v(n,t) #n,(union variant_t*)&n,t
struct pub_values_t pub_values[] = {
pub_v(somemember, 'D'),
pub_v(somemember2, 'D'),
pub_v(somemember3, 'U'),
...
};
const int no_of_pub_vs = sizeof(pub_values) / sizeof(struct pub_values_t);
To state the obvious, there is no reflection in C or C++. Hence no reliable way of enumerating member variables (by default).
If you have control over your data structure, you could try a std::vector<boost::any> or a std::map<std::string, boost::any> then add all your member variables to the vector/map.
Of course, this means all your variables will likely be on the heap so there will be a performance hit with this approach. With the std::map approach, it means that you would have a kind of "poor man's" reflection.
You can specify your types in an intermediate file and generate C++ code from that, something like COM classes can be generated from idl files. The generated code provides reflection capabilities for those types.
I've done something similar two different ways for different projects:
a custom file parsed by a Ruby script to do the generation
define the types as C# types, use C#'s reflection to get all the information and generate C++ from this (sounds convoluted, but works surprisingly well, and writing the type definitions is quite similar to writing C++ definitions)
Boost has a ready to use Variant library that may fit your needs.
simplest way - switch to Objective-C OR Objective-C++. That languages have good introspection and are full-compatible with C/C++ sources.
also You can use m4/cog/... for simultaneous generation structure and his description from some meta-description.
It feels like you are constructing some sort of debugger. I think this should be doable if you make sure you generate pdb files while building your executable.
Not sure in what context you want to do this enumeration, but in your program you should be able to call functions from Microsofts dbghelp.dll to get type information from variables etc. (I'm assuming you are using windows, which might of course not be the case)
Hope this helps to get you a little bit further.
Cheers!
Since C++ does not have reflection builtin, you can only get the information be teaching separately your program about the struct content.
This can be either by generating your structure from a format that you can use after that to know the strcture information, or by parsing your .h file to extract the structure information.
Related
Is there a way to enumerate the members of a structure (struct | class) in C++ or C? I need to get the member name, type, and value. I've used the following sample code before on a small project where the variables were globally scoped. The problem I have now is that a set of values need to be copied from the GUI to an object, file, and VM environment. I could create another "poor man’s" reflection system or hopefully something better that I haven't thought of yet. Does anyone have any thoughts?
EDIT: I know C++ doesn't have reflection.
union variant_t {
unsigned int ui;
int i;
double d;
char* s;
};
struct pub_values_t {
const char* name;
union variant_t* addr;
char type; // 'I' is int; 'U' is unsigned int; 'D' is double; 'S' is string
};
#define pub_v(n,t) #n,(union variant_t*)&n,t
struct pub_values_t pub_values[] = {
pub_v(somemember, 'D'),
pub_v(somemember2, 'D'),
pub_v(somemember3, 'U'),
...
};
const int no_of_pub_vs = sizeof(pub_values) / sizeof(struct pub_values_t);
To state the obvious, there is no reflection in C or C++. Hence no reliable way of enumerating member variables (by default).
If you have control over your data structure, you could try a std::vector<boost::any> or a std::map<std::string, boost::any> then add all your member variables to the vector/map.
Of course, this means all your variables will likely be on the heap so there will be a performance hit with this approach. With the std::map approach, it means that you would have a kind of "poor man's" reflection.
You can specify your types in an intermediate file and generate C++ code from that, something like COM classes can be generated from idl files. The generated code provides reflection capabilities for those types.
I've done something similar two different ways for different projects:
a custom file parsed by a Ruby script to do the generation
define the types as C# types, use C#'s reflection to get all the information and generate C++ from this (sounds convoluted, but works surprisingly well, and writing the type definitions is quite similar to writing C++ definitions)
Boost has a ready to use Variant library that may fit your needs.
simplest way - switch to Objective-C OR Objective-C++. That languages have good introspection and are full-compatible with C/C++ sources.
also You can use m4/cog/... for simultaneous generation structure and his description from some meta-description.
It feels like you are constructing some sort of debugger. I think this should be doable if you make sure you generate pdb files while building your executable.
Not sure in what context you want to do this enumeration, but in your program you should be able to call functions from Microsofts dbghelp.dll to get type information from variables etc. (I'm assuming you are using windows, which might of course not be the case)
Hope this helps to get you a little bit further.
Cheers!
Since C++ does not have reflection builtin, you can only get the information be teaching separately your program about the struct content.
This can be either by generating your structure from a format that you can use after that to know the strcture information, or by parsing your .h file to extract the structure information.
Well this might be a very weird question but my curiosity has striken pretty hard on this. So here it goes...
NOTE: Lets take the language C into consideration here.
As programmers we usually define a user-defined datatype(say struct) in the source code with the appropriate name.
Suppose I have a program in which I have a structure defined as:
struct Animal {
char *name;
int lifeSpan;
};
And also I have started the execution of this program.
Now, my question here is;
What if I want to define a new structure called "Plant" just like "Animal" mentioned above in my program, without writing its definition in the source code itself(which is obviously impossible currently) but rather from a user input string(or a file input) during runtime.
Lets say my program takes input string from a text file named file1.txt whose content is:
struct Plant {
char *name;
int lifeSpan;
};
What I want now is to have a new structure named "Plant" in my program which is already in execution. The program should read the file content and create a structure as written in the file and attach it to itself on-the-go.
I have checked out a solution for C++ in the discussion Declaring a data type dynamically in C++ but it doesnt seem to have a very convincing solution.
The solution I am looking for is at the compiler-linker-loader level rather than from the language itself.I would be very pleased and thankful if anyone is looking forward to sharing their ideas on this.
What you're asking about is basically "can we implement C as a scripting language?", since this is the only way code can be executed after compilation.
I'm aware that people have been writing (mostly in the comments) that it's possible in other languages but isn't possible in C, since C is a compiled language (hence data types should be defined during compile time).
However, to the best of my knowledge it's actually possible (and might not be as hard as one would imagine).
There are many possible approaches (machine code emulation (VM), JIT compilation, etc').
One approach will use a C compiler to compile the C script as an external dynamic library (.dll on windows, .so on linux, etc') and than "load" the compiled library and execute the code (this is pretty much the JIT compilation approach, for lazy people).
EDIT:
As mentioned in the comments, by using this approach, the new type is loaded as part of an external library.
The original code won't know about this new type, only the new code (or library) will be "aware" of this new type and able to properly use it.
On the other hand, I'm not sure why you're insisting on the need to use static types and a compiler-linker-loader level solution.
The language itself (the C language) can manage this task dynamically (during execution time).
Consider Ruby MRI, for example. The Ruby language supports dynamic types that can be defined during runtime...
...However, this is implemented in C and it's possible to use the code from within C to define new modules and classes. These aren't static types that can be tested during compilation (type creation and identification is performed during runtime).
This is a perfect example showing that C (as a language) can dynamically define "types".
However, this is also a poor example because Ruby's approach is slow. A custom approved can be far faster since it would avoid the huge overhead related to functionality you might not need (such as inheritance).
What Searching I've Done:
Hello, so typedefs are a new topic to me, and I have already read a page about them. (http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/typedef) But that's the best information I could find, the only problem is because I have no idea how it's working enough, I'm unable to rework it and use it for my situation.
Also, for the heads up; I'm trying to create a type like the 'App' type that you write when creating a CLR Form in C++. (Visual Studio) The only difference is it will be used for a different reason, so don't copy the code from it please.
My Code:
#pragma once
class Application {
public:
typedef class App; // Runnable C++ object (TEST PLEASE DON'T JUDGE)
private:
void Run(App myApp) { // ERROR: incomplete type is not allowed
}
};
How You Can Help Me:
Explain what a typedef is used for. (Examples will work)
Explain in what type I should create the 'App' type. (Eg. Class, String, Int, etc.) Or explain in what other way I can do so.
You can also just create an example with comments explaining.
Thanks for the help! I tried to keep this question real explainable and sleek.
In C++, typedef simply creates an alias for another type, such that referencing the new type is identical to referencing the original type.
// create a alias for the int type
typedef int my_new_type;
// here a and b have the same type
int a = 1;
my_new_type b = 1;
The above is a contrived example, generally the types you use typedef for would be more complex (like std::vector<std::pair<int, std::string>>). For your use case, I'm not sure a typedef is what you are looking for.
I think you're looking for
typedef Application App;
But I'm not sure why you don't just do
class Application {
private:
void Run(Application myApp) {
}
};
As for usage, one use for typedef is to define types whose underlying type may vary depending on the build configuration, target platform and compiler. For example if you are writing a game that will run on PS4 and XBOX One, you might be using two different compilers depending on which platform you are building for.
#if defined(MSVC)
typedef __int64 TInt64;
#elif defined(GCC)
typedef int64_t TInt64;
#endif
This allows more of your code to be platform-agnostic and abstracts away compiler/platform details making app code more readable and encapsulating the assumptions we're interested in. It also reduces codebase size and preprocessing which can improve your compile times.
// We can assume this will be exactly 64 bits on all our target platforms.
TInt64 myInt = 0x1000000000000000;
P.S. Although it doesn't cover typedefs in general Marshall Cline's C++ FAQ is an great resource for beginners and experts alike.
I'm looking for a way to parse a C structure in order to get the the name and the type of the variables.
For example I have a structure like this:
struct MyStruct {
int anInt ;
float aFloat ;
}
I need to get the types int and float and the 2 strings "anInt" and "aFloat".
After I have to use these values in another function:
addValue<int>("anInt") ;
add Value<float>("aFloat") ;
Do you know how to do this automatically, I guess, at compilation ?
Thanks.
You probably cannot do that with standard C++11 template code.
You could consider customizing your C++ compiler to get such information. For example, if compiling your code with a recent GCC, you might consider customizing it with your MELT extension (MELT is a domain specific language, implemented by a plugin, to customize GCC). You'll need to understand the details of GCC internal representation (so such an extension might take a week or more of your time).
The Qt MOC facility might perhaps be useful or inspirational. It is parsing a limited form of class declaration.
Alternatively you might consider generating the C++ struct or class representation from some other input; e.g. change your build procedure, perhaps your Makefile, to generate some .h header file (and perhaps some .cc C++ translation unit) from your higher level representation.
I'd like to change the way some types are displayed using either 'dt' or '??' in a manner similar to how you can do that with autoexp.dat. Is there a way to do this?
For example, I have a structure something like this:
struct Foo
{
union Bar
{
int a;
void *p;
} b;
};
And I've got an array of a few hundred of these, all of which I know point to a structure Bar. Is there any way to tell cdb that, in this expression anyway, that 'p' is a pointer to Bar? This is the kind of thing you could do with autoexp. (The concrete example here is that I've got a stashtable that can have keys of any type, but I know they keys are strings. the implementation stores them as void pointers).
Thanks in advance!
I don't think there's anything as simple as autoexp.dat.
You have a couple potential options - you can write a simple script file with the debugger commands to dump the data structure in the way you want and use the "$<filename" command (or one of its variants). Combined with user aliases you can get this to be pretty easy and natural to use.
The second option is quite a bit more involved, but with it comes much more power - write an extension DLL that dumps your data structure. For something like what you're talking about this is probably overkill. But you have immense power with debugger extensions (in fact, much of the power that comes in the Debugging tools package is implemented this way). The SDK is packaged with the debugger, so it's easy to determine if this is what you might need.
You can say du or da to have it dump memory as unicode or ascii strings.